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Inmate and military veteran Tim Brown said doing something positive for Salinas made a group of incarcerated veterans feel good.

Brown said, "We figure, we've taken a lot. All of our crimes have taken away from people and the people that lose most are the children. So we are going to give back to the children," Brown said.

The inmates sold delicacies that are hard to come by behind bars: fried chicken, candy, and cake.

"They put the money up to buy the food, they sell it to the other inmates, and all the profit goes to charity," Salinas Valley State Prison information officer Eduardo Mazariegos said.

Tatum's Garden board members said they are grateful for the money and shocked that fundraisers like this are even possible for inmates.

"We're just thrilled, we are just amazed that we had no idea as inmates that they could do any kind of fundraiser and that they organized it, put it together and raised that amount of money and chose us to be the recipients , we're just beyond thrilled," Tatum's Garden board member Ellie Love said.

The thousands of dollars will go towards making repairs to the playground and routine maintenance.

"That will go along way towards helping to maintain the park and provide for repairs some of the things that might break from time to time so it will definitely go to good use for the kids to have a great time when they go to the park," Love said.

Tatum's Garden is also planning to build a new playground in Toro Park.